Dead Space: Rising
by NeonZangetsu
Summary: There is nothing more terrifying than death...except, when the dead start rising and try to kill you! NarutoxTayuya. Trapped on a vessel with thousands of corpses, a lone man tries to find the love off his life amidst the horror of space. Horror, romance. Character death. Dead Space crossover.


**A/N: I return once again! As I'm sure you've all noticed, I've been on one helluva updating spree as of late, let my imagination run wild as I see fit. Originally, I had intented to create this particular story much sooner, but my computer crashed and I lost EVERYTHING. Thus, I was forced to recreate this from scratch as well as several others. My only regret is that I wasn't able to get it to ya'll sooner. But hey, better late than never, no?**

**That, and I haven't gotten all that many reviews for the latest chapter of "Vanguard of Shinobi." But hey, you win some and ya lose some! You didn't come here for that! You came for the next chapter! And I'm proud to present it! So, without further adue, I present you with...**

_"You think you're insane? Try living a day in my shoes!"_

_~?_

**Dead Space**

_"Mother! Fucker!"_

The man grunted, the sound tearing low and deep in his throat as he ripped his boot free from the...whatever the hell this thing was. A bloody gurgle greeted his efforts, the corpse-like creature twitching spasmodically when he took his foot away. Amazingly it tried to rise, despite lacking three of its four limbs. Another stomp of that equally heavy boot swiftly disabused it of that notion. Just to be certain, he cut it into tiny little pieces with his _chakra_ and blew them out of the nearest airlock.

Even then, he wasn't entirely certain the creature was dead. Damed things were hard as hell to kill and persistent as a motherfucker. It if weren't for his military-grade hardsuit...he almost shuddered to think what their bladed hands could've done to him. Honestly, all this coming-back-to-life crap was almost enough to make him regret taking on the job. But almost wasn't enough to make him turn around and stalk back to the hangar, collect his loses, and leave.

Not when _she _was still here.

It had seemed like such a bright idea at the time; now he was beginning to quesiton the validity of such a decision. Sneak aboard a powerless ship, his employer had said. Easy money, they said. Nothing will go wrong, they said. You'll just get in, get this Marker thing, and get out. Piece of cake, they said.

_Fucking liars!_

Ever since he'd set foot on the _USG Ishimura_ everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. And that was putting it nicely! But when you lived as long as he had, sometimes you had to take risks. Make mistakes. Perhaps that had been his first mistake; letting his guard down. When you thought you were invincible, you got sloppy. Sloppy, like letting her go on this damned venture without him.

Never once had he considered that his target would be this planet cracker, the very ship she was on. The one person who'd suffered through this twisted form of immortality with him throughout these ages and would likely live thrice as long again on and without him. _Tayuya._ He'd been a fool to let her go off on this planet-cracking crap. He knew it now. But it had seemed like such a good idea at the time and they'd needed money in more ways than one. You simply couldn't make money by assasination, not anymore.

Of course, there were always those willing to pay to have their enemies eliminated but those were jobs they weren't willing to take. They weren't _that_ desperate. He still had that recording of her, playing over and over in his mind.

_"Never should've come here. Never should've come here..._

So here he was, his own version of hell.

No sooner had he docked his single-man skiff than everything had gone straight to hell; he'd crashed landed, had been harassed by these creatures to no end. Ammo was scarce. Medkits even scarcer. These creatures weren't the sort you wanted to take down in hand to hand combat, not with those god awful blades for hands. As if mocking his very luck a nearby vent chose that moment to rumble. Something was hiding up in there and he very much doubted it was friendly. Any survivors he'd encountered on this ship had been practically nonexistent, found in the form of audio or video recordings.

"C'mon mother fucker." he muttered grimly, raising his battered pulse rifle. "It's wabbit season."

His finger was just tightening on the trigger when the door to his right whooshed open and something slammed into him. That should've been his first warning; necromorphs didn't know how to open doors. But he was locked firmly in an adrenaline rush and struck without thinking.

"Ow!"

Needless to say, mistakes were made.

A pained grunt greeted his efforts as the butt of his gun slammed into someone's head. A human grunt. Human head. The man froze as he heard the telltale clicking of a rifle being cocked and loaded. He flung an arm before his face, the shield flaring into existence in response. Bullet's ricocheted in nearly every direction, spattering harmlessly offf the barrier's zone. He caught sight of them then through the V-shaped sit in his visor and nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all. Survivors. A man and a woman. The latter was looking at him as though he'd right and truly seen a ghost; quite possible, given the circumstances. The former, appeared to be more baffled than anything else.

Then the man-a soldier?-raised his gun again. The mercenary swore.

"Don't you fucking move-

_"Whoa whoa whoa!"_

What followed was a lot of gun-pointing and more shouting than was strictly neccessary. Neither was willing to listen-or trust-the other, the circumstances of their arrival too conspicuous to remain unquestioned. But a red herring or not, neither seemed willing to waste more ammunition in this coffin of a ship. At least, until the black man tried to shoot at him again.

"Hammond, don't!" The woman yanked down the barrel of the gun before more shots could be fired. "He's not one of them!"

"Fuck that, I'm not taking any chance_-oof!"_

Once more the man grunted, this time as the merc's hardened helmet smacked into his unprotected forehead. The poor fellow folded like a wet paper bag, hissing in pain.

"While I appreciate someone with _common sense_ as much as the next man, _who __in the fuck're you?"_ Once the mercenary would've balked at such language, but a certain redhead and her foul mouth had rubbed off on him. Besides, he wasn't exactly in a pleasant mood at the moment. Must've been the zombies. It certainly wasn't the lovely environment! "I've

"Kendra." the woman introduced herself, holding one arm at her side. Suddenly, her gaze strayed to the hissing soldier on dck. "And this is-

"Hammond." he already knew that much from earlier.

"Name's Naruto." the man grunted, his helmet finally collapsing to expose a worn, whiskered face and blearly blue eyes. "Mind tell me what the _hell _is going on here?"

**A/N: There you have it! My very first Dead Space crossover. Betcha can't guess what inspired me to take up the pen and tackle this universe head on. Hmm? The quote shoulda made it obvious but needless to say, this is going to be as horrifying as it is amusing. As another note Issac DOES exist in this fic; please recall that throughout the game he is more often than not separated from both Hammond and Kendra. But what of Naruto? Is Tayuya alive? If so, will he reach her in time? We'll have to see...**

**So...In the Immortal Words of Altas...**

**...Make us Whole-gah! Review, Would You Kindly?!**

**R&R! =D**


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